October 13th

Hi All

We are now back in respective countries and homes, hard to believe that we were only away for five days! The second show was as enjoyable as the first and earlier….showtime was 6pm! One lady drove 4 hours with her triplets in the car and apparently was very emotional listening to the music, unfortunately we didn’t get to meet her after the show as she had such a long drive. Another ‘young’ man the night before had been on a train for 5 hours to come and see us, quite amazing and we did get to meet and chat with him albeit  with a little language problem. We noticed that there were quite a few younger fans than one would expect, which made the experience even more fulfilling for us! We had the same reaction to the songs, especially ‘Mystic’ and also once again they sang along in ‘Ashes’. We spent time after the show signing autographs, this was a real pleasure as the people were just so nice…I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we would have loved to have stayed and done some more shows and had the opportunity to see more of the country and it’s history. I was told they have beautiful waterfalls, that would have been a real treat. We look forward to going back there, the sooner the better, jet-lag and all! So here are some photos I took, I did do a small video from my ‘Droid’ phone and am hoping I can transfer it so you can see it too. I hope you enjoy the photos….

Peace

Annie and the guys

The Palace Band…

Changing the Guard

Palace Guards and Little Girl

Palace Guards

Palace Guard

The Palace Guards in place

First gateway to ‘Gyeongbok Palace’

King’s Palace

King’s Palace..

Palace and Mountains

Old and New

Horse Statue

Palace Throne Room

Throne Room Ceiling

Throne Room Ceiling..

Not sure what this ‘Urn/Pot’ is

Children at the Kings Coffee House

Michael Jason and Rave at Coffee House

King’s Coffee House

Michael, Annie and Jason at the Palace

Renaissance banner at Mapo Arts Centre

Just before set-up

Rave tells yet another funny story!

Mapo Arts Centre Pre Show

Frank Chillin’ out

Michael at soundcheck

SET LIST

PROLOGUE • CARPET OF THE SUN • MIDAS MAN • RUNNING HARD • BLACK FLAME • THINGS I DON’T UNDERSTAND • OCEAN GYPSY • THE MYSTIC AND THE MUSE • MOTHER RUSSIA • ASHES ARE BURNING

Rave and Frank in our ‘Butterfly’ Bus

Photos • Annie Haslam

Chris Capozza – Soundman

Annie, Rave , Michael and Frank at Mapo Arts Centre

Photo • Chris Capozza

October 11th

Hi Everyone from warm and friendly S.Korea….

We  had travelled halfway across the world again in such a short space of time, but the show last night at the Mapo Art Centre in Seoul was certainly worth it.
But to backtrack, in the afternoon of our day off, Si-Wan the promoter of our shows, took us to see the Royal Palace (more details coming with photos attached soon).
It was a lovely late summer day, in the low 70’s. The grounds of the Palace were vast, with wide paving stones, each holding their own fascinating stories I’m sure.
We arrived to the sound of a huge echoing drum, that was calling in the changing of the guards. It was almost like it was planned specially for us. The timing was perfect.
It started with approximately 30 red clad musicians all playing some kind of ‘weird’ sounding (weird notes too) flute type instrument. This heralded the arrival of the guards appearing from another direction through an old palace gateway. This was quite a sight! they marched  in with banners flying in bright vibrant blue, red and yellow, matching their regal flowing robes, carrying ‘Spears’ that had big scary looking blades on the ends.
I got quite emotional, it was a beautiful sight.
As the drum and the procession died down we meandered around the courtyards, peeking in to the main temple to see the King’s throne.
It would have been so easy just to sit down on one of the old stone walls and stay and watch the sunset over the mountains that that were the backdrop for all of this.

Another memorable part to this afternoon were many (possibly hundreds in all) of young schoolchildren, the little ones were very cute. I had little girls that seemed to be drawn to me because of the color of my hair.
Tiny voices saying, “Nice to meet you” followed by giggles and smiles.
The same happened to the guys, I guess we did stand out a bit!
This was a beautiful way to start our adventure in Korea!
I think we all felt humbled and privileged to experience another country that is so far from home and what we know.
There couldn’t have been a nicer ending to our day.

Now to the first show.

The Mapo Arts Center is lovely and holds approximately 850 people.and site in the centre of the city of Seoul. We had a nice big stage and beautiful lighting. The crew at the venue and Si-Wan’s staff had worked very hard to make sure we had what we needed for the show. Our sound man, Chris Capozza also did a marvellous job making sure that our required equipment would be available….this had been a bit of challenge when communicating across such a vast distance.
Of course we were all ‘jet-lagging’. It is quite a challenge to fly half way across the world to perform, and then only have one day to get acclimatised….one really needs a week! In any case we all performed excellently considering all of this and our first show was a resounding success.

When we came out on stage the audience were very loud in their appreciation of seeing us in person for the first time.
We were told after the show, that standing ovations do not happen here, but I guess we have now changed that!
I could see that people were singing along and they were very excited at every song announcement we made.
Once again ‘The Mystic and The Muse’ struck a big chord with ‘everyone’, the crowd went wild and LOVED it and just wouldn’t stop applauding. I was so overwhelmed I nearly fell over…hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
It is quite obvious that this song is very ‘special’

But the real surprise that Michael and I could hardly believe, is that when I did my ‘operatic’ solo at the end of ‘Ashes are Burning’ the fans answered my singing, there was a tumultuous roar of voices completely filling the theater. I could could barely contain myself. We had never thought of ‘Ashes’ as a ‘sing along’ but I guess now, Korea has started a new trend!  🙂

We signed autographs after the show, and some of the comments were very touching, especially because it is our first time in Korea and also that they never thought they would see us perform here. Lovely warm people…

So as I would really like to go to bed now even though it is only 11.53am, in my mind and body it is 10.53pm and time for beddy byes.
So I will go and get myself into show mode. Show time is earlier tonight, 6pm.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh an early night/morning or whatever.

Back tomorrow to give you another update.

Love and Peace from us all   x